cry, "My Love returns no more again!" Here, in my castle of Despair, I sit alone with memory; The wind-fed wolf has left his lair, To keep the outcast company. The brooding owl he hoots hard by, The hare shall kindle on thy hearth-stane, The Rhymer's soothest prophecy,—[1] My Love returns no more again! ENVOY. Lady, my home until I die Is here, where youth and hope were slain; They flit, the ghosts of our July, My Love returns no more again! ENVOY BALLADE OF OLD PLAYS. TO BRANDER MATTHEWS. (Les Œuvres de Monsieur Molière. A Paris, chez Louys Billaine, à la Palme. M.D.C.LXVI.) LA COUR. When these Old Plays were new, the King, Beside the Cardinal's chair, Applauded, 'mid the courtly ring, The verses of Molière; Point-lace was then the only wear, Old Corneille came to woo, And bright Du Parc was young and fair, When these Old Plays were new! LA COMÉDIE. How shrill the butcher's cat-calls ring, How loud the lackeys swear! Black pipe-bowls on the stage they fling, At Brecourt, fuming there! The Porter's stabbed! a Mousquetaire Breaks in with noisy crew— 'T was all a commonplace affair When these Old Plays were new! LA VILLE. When these Old Plays were new! They bring A host of phantoms rare: Old jests that float, old jibes that sting, Old faces peaked with care: Menage's smirk, de Visé's stare, The thefts of Jean Ribou,—[2] Ah, publishers were hard to bear When these Old Plays were new. ENVOY. Ghosts, at your Poet's word ye dare To break Death's dungeons through, And frisk, as in that golden air, When these Old Plays were new! TO BRANDER MATTHEWS. M.D.C.LXVI LA COUR LA COMÉDIE LA VILLE ENVOY BALLADE OF ROULETTE TO R. R. This life—one was thinking to-day, In the midst of a medley of fancies— Is a game, and the board where we play Green earth with her poppies and pansies. Let manque be faded romances, Be passe remorse and regret; Hearts dance with the wheel as it dances— The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette. The lover will stake as he may His heart on his Peggies and Nancies; The girl has her beauty to lay; The saint has his prayers and his trances; The poet bets endless expanses In Dreamland; the scamp has his debt: How they gaze at the wheel as it glances— The
Prev.
Back
Top